Excessive battery usage due to health app logging? (iOS 13.5.1)

[leejo]

Device info: iPhone 11 Pro. iOS 13.5.1

According to the FAQ the impact the application has on battery life should be relatively low.

Having installed the app last week I have noticed my battery requires much more frequent charging. I had a look at the battery statistics this morning:

Over a 24hr period the level of my battery fell from approx 75% to approx 25%. According to the battery stats 80% of that was the health app logging data from the SwissCovid app. That seems rather excessive.

Is there an issue here, or is this expected behaviour?

[UBaggeler]

Exposure Notifications of iOS are optimized by Apple to save as much battery as possible. These reported battery usage numbers are relative to what is running on a phone during a certain time. When nothing else is running, COVID-tracing can take up to 100% of battery (because no other app is using battery). During testing we have observed a low usage of EN compared to when it was disabled.

[leejo]

Yep, I understand that the reports are relative, but 80% of an approx 40% reduction in battery charge still seems rather excessive.

Here's yesterday, which is much more as expected - only falling a couple of percent. I think the major difference here is that I finished charging the phone before going home at 5pm, so it will not have been in the presence of any other device after having been fully charged.

I shall leave my phone on my desk all day today without charging it and see what the reports say tomorrow.

[leejo]

Here's yesterday and the last ten days.

These look a lot more reasonable. I think this is still something worth looking into, there was a poll done on the NHS' app that revealed even a small to moderate drain on battery life would put people off installing it.

Obviously I will be keeping the app installed, but I think there is a danger if users look at their battery life usage and see figures like this they might be tempted to uninstall the app.

[UBaggeler]

Can you please re-check with iOS 13.6?

[leejo]

Can you please re-check with iOS 13.6?

Yep. Will let you know in a couple of days.

[leejo]

No change as far as I can see.

[leejo]

https://youtu.be/cRH-mrxrJHw?t=397